At the Forge: Why Linux?

Reuven steps back this month and offers an overview of Linux's progression in business.

No Secrets

Engineers are notoriously bad at keeping secrets, as Scott
Adams has occasionally pointed out in his
Dilbert comics. Indeed, one of the things that
attracts me to open-source software is the fact that there are no
secrets. Clients hire me because they want to save themselves time
or because they lack expertise in a particular area, not because
they are forced to do so. For this reason, I tend to think of
myself as analogous to a lawyer or accountant, both of whom offer
advice and documents based on freely available information.

This “no secrets” philosophy tends to work well with my
clients, including those who aren't at all interested in knowing
how the software works. They know they can ask me questions, and
I'll give them the best answer I can, without having to hide behind
marketing hype, mandatory updates or double-talk. My technical
clients, of course, enjoy knowing they can dive into the code or
read the documentation; the only thing stopping them from knowing
what I know is time and experience.

My nonprofit clients, who are in many ways the perfect
audience for open-source software, are often excited by the
possibility of using such tools. In particular, I have found that
educational institutions like the idea of sharing information and
community involvement, in software as in other spheres of life.
Telling them they can both save money and participate in a
community of like-minded people is a powerful combination.
Moreover, nonprofits typically have little incentive to keep
changes within the company, meaning that they can more easily
participate in the Open Source community.

High-Quality Toolkits

When I first began to write this column for Linux Journal, most server-side web applications were
handwritten CGI programs. A huge number of web sites still use such
programs. But as the Web has become more sophisticated, people have
demanded toolkits that make it easier to develop high-quality,
scalable web applications in a short amount of time. It shouldn't
come as any surprise that many proprietary software companies have
come to fill this void. It is shocking, however, to find out how
much money they want for their software—sold on the condition that
their consultants are hired to customize it, followed by a
mandatory service contract.

Luckily, the open-source world has responded. A number of
open-source toolkits can be used for creating sophisticated
server-side applications. Zope, as we have seen in recent months,
is a fantastic (if complicated) application server, making it
possible to create web applications that connect to databases and
other information sources. Next month, we'll begin to look at
OpenACS, designed to make on-line community systems easy to build
and modify. Furthermore, such environments as mod_perl, Mason and
the numerous Java- and XML-related tools sponsored by the Apache
Software Foundation increasingly mean that locating the right tool
can be as difficult as installing and using it.

But as wonderful as these toolkits are, we must remember that
not everyone will be won over. My harshest lesson on this front
came last year when a potential client decided against hiring me to
create a simple content management system for producing a product
catalog for the Web. I was told that my bid came in at $800,000
less than my closest competitor. However, because I was using
open-source software and the competition was a well-known name in
the world of content management, I lost out. (That client has had a
round of layoffs and quarterly losses since then, and their web
site still appears to be managed by hand, so at least I won a moral
victory of sorts.)

We should also remember that not every player in the
open-source sphere can be trusted to follow through on their
promises to the community. Many open-source advocates were
surprised and disappointed when Lutris pulled the plug on its
open-source Enhydra Enterprise Java application server last year,
turning it into a proprietary product. Luckily, there are
alternatives; not only has the GPL-licensed JBoss application
server dramatically grown in popularity over the last year, but Sun
recently made it clear that nonprofit, open-source J2EE
implementations will be able to receive official certification in
the coming months. This should help to reduce further the stigma
that some businesses associate with open-source software.

But even if you suffer setbacks, don't be fooled: as IBM, HP
and even Sun now acknowledge, Linux and open-source software are
powerful, stable and should be taken seriously. “World
domination” hasn't yet arrived, but brand-name recognition,
financial realities and admiration from academics and commercial
entities alike are helping us move ahead.

Geek Guides

Pick up any e-commerce web or mobile app today, and you’ll be holding a mashup of interconnected applications and services from a variety of different providers. For instance, when you connect to Amazon’s e-commerce app, cookies, tags and pixels that are monitored by solutions like Exact Target, BazaarVoice, Bing, Shopzilla, Liveramp and Google Tag Manager track every action you take. You’re presented with special offers and coupons based on your viewing and buying patterns. If you find something you want for your birthday, a third party manages your wish list, which you can share through multiple social- media outlets or email to a friend. When you select something to buy, you find yourself presented with similar items as kind suggestions. And when you finally check out, you’re offered the ability to pay with promo codes, gifts cards, PayPal or a variety of credit cards.